Setting
out to find such a room took time and effort, and while the others
'fanned out', I and Sarah worked on sewing up scabbards for knives
and swords. We now had to make one for Gabriel, his such that he
could either wear the thing on his belt or concealed beneath his
'burn-clothing', and while Sarah spent a certain amount of time
sewing up the scabbards, and I did some time on riveting up the
riveted portions of Gabriel's scabbard, we both
spent time altering that one burn-garment she'd somehow
'requisitioned'. I had some odd ideas as to how to cut the thing,
chiefly as allowing extra room in the shoulders and waist.

“What would that
do?” asked Sarah. “It will not fit him as well.”

“No, it won't,”
I said. “It will also reduce its interference with his free
movement, allow him to hide a number of things on his person and
reach them quickly, and then also permit him to run readily – and
he will need to do all of those things in that port. That's going to
be his second baptism of fire, as the witches they have down
there know what he looks like and they know
about that price on his head. He'll turn into a 'gunfighter' for
certain before we get done there.” Pause, then, “I know just
what to call him.”

“Yes, and what
would that be?” said Hans.

“I thought you
were to go after lead?” I asked. I thusly had had not a chance to
yet speak of 'the man with no name'. That would, I suspect, become a
title he earned, as that was a name to conjure with across the
sea. More than one 'monster' had worn it, in fact, and those
individuals had high prices put upon their heads by the
witches: as they were as hard to catch as putting smoke in a
narrow-necked spirit-bottle, tended to show up in places the witches
never expected to see, displayed suicidal bravery and courage
– and then cut a swathe through any and all units sent
against them as they returned with whatever they were sent to grab.

More, they of that
'battle-moniker' usually did that particular bit of nonsense multiple
times per tour while in a given portion of the battle-zone, and
their dress was such that one might well think them to match how
Gabriel would look in battle-dress, that is a hooded
long-sleeved cloak, trousers, short-sleeved shirt, and
'exercise-clothing' for underwear. He'd wear that burn-clothing
until we left the sailing craft behind, where it would then be packed
away in one of our bags of gear as both muffling and shielding, and
something a bit more suitable put on in its place.

“Yes, and I just
got back with some, too,” said Hans. “Four bricks is as much as
my buggy can stand, or so Lukas told me and the others, but that with
just me in it otherwise makes for fast traveling, and the horses are
rolling in the hay while the people working here are unloading that
stuff.” Pause, then, “only about four of all of those people you
thumped with those two dead legs are still working on the first
floor's mess, and they're all doing good work now.”

“The rest of
them turned witch, I suspect,” said Sarah, “and Gabriel got to
see his own hare dealing with them when they tried for Hendrik
and those others of us in his office.”

Hans stood
open-jawed, his mouth slack, then Georg wandered along with a slung
shotgun across his chest, a belt of shells – all of the loops full
of loaded ones, I now noticed – and a jug of beer in each hand,
along with a 'clockwork marvel' pistol jutting out of his pocket. He
needed both a better pistol and a holster, along with a magazine-case
for a half-dozen magazines. “That planning is thirsty work, and
hungry, also. They're figuring out just how to put this place in
here coming off of Hendrik's rooms so he can visit his
'close-closeted scribes' without going outside of his office. That
will cause him a lot less trouble, is what I told him, as then the
witches don't know anything about who he's seeing or what he's
doing.”

“Ah, that is
good, then,” said Hans. “Now how is it they will fall for them
regularly if they get scattered good, and half the house is wrecked
when those things explode?”

“We shall use
some weaker varieties,” I said. “Turn the witch into a sieve,
perhaps turn a ready-for-the-paper-mill door into kindling, and the
same for the going-rotten furniture, but little damage to the rooms
themselves.” I then had a most-peculiar idea. “We use some
electric caps going into some smaller versions of round mines
at each end of the hallway with about a second's delay, so when the
point-thug gets his, the rest of the witches – oh, about
twenty or so providing 'cover' and 'follow-on' – run each way from
the blast, then they get turned into pie-filling also. Nice,
neat, and a lot of dead meat for the manure pile, and
General's Row makes a bit less of a Row for a while due to its losing
a good percentage of its Row-makers.”

“Good,”
muttered Georg, who went off to the kitchen, with Hans in tow. Hans
would no doubt be heading back shortly, as he was here just
long enough to rest his animals a bit and get some food down him,
or so I thought when he returned to us still laboring like 'bees'.
He then told us about the sleds, and how he was to take two out as
they were completed.

“Done?” I
asked.

“Yes, and they
are putting some thin copper on the bottom of those things,” said
Hans. “That will cover their wood, and the wood parts are getting
smoothed before a rub with drying oil. Then, it is two bricks each
for one of those little boats, or one trip apiece for me, and three
such trips of two of those things for Georg's buggy and team.”
Pause, then, “I am waiting here so as to take them back out there,
in fact, and I will be doing a lot of that fetching, either me or
someone else who is good at spotting boggy places in the daytime.”
Hans implied, “I had to eat grass in hell before being able to do
that.”

“Seen many
witches?” I asked.

“No, not many,
though if one of them shows, he gets shot quick,” said Hans. “I
told everyone that when you see one, there are probably a lot more
nearby, so usually someone who can throw good tosses one of those
things that looks like a metal pear into the trees behind that
wretch, and that gets to them.”

“It does?” I
asked.

“Usually sets
that woodlot alight, too,” said Hans. “Once Matthias tossed one
in just after I shot a witch, and then not two words after it
explodes, there is a whole flock of witches coming out, and it got
hot for us. I must have went through half a box before they were all
down, and every witch I shot was a dead man, as I was shooting them
in the head regularly, and they had their heads go like witch-jugs
filled with dust-powder.”

“And you are
sore?” I said.

“I was rubbing
myself with Geneva on the way here,” said Hans, “so when I hear
some witches speaking in this bad language witches like to speak, I
get one of those strange things that looks like a Harvest Day squib,
hold its handle in, pull its pin, and when I can tell where they are
hiding, I stand up and toss it in that ditch by the side of the road.
I hied the horses then, and it was a good thing I did so, as it
exploded like half a box of mining dynamite, and that got to their
dynamite and distillate, and when I looked back a minute or so later,
that whole place was burning like some place that makes distillate.”

“Where did you
get..?”

“That was
strange,” said Hans. “I was on the way there, and I heard this
strange thumping noise, and then there is this bag on the seat beside
me. So, I wait until we get to the first place on the map, and when
we pull up, I look to see what it is.” Hans was grinning now. “I
counted six metal pears, and twelve of those green things that look
like Harvest Day squibs, only these have this name I dare not speak,
as it will knot my tongue.”

“Cyclohexanite?”
I asked.

“Yes, that is
it, and they each have a hundred of these things called grams in
them,” said Hans. “They are like a big bundle of mining dynamite
apiece, and while they are not as touchy as the drippy stuff, they do
not want rough handling, as they will explode if you toss them hard,
pin or no pin.”

“So we were
told,” said Sarah, as she finished a seam and began working on
another. She was marveling at my work – slower, yes, but close to
hers for neatness. More, it was done right, as she had
seen my knotting every stitch, which she had said was done for the
best travel-clothing. “Anna must have not seen him sew
much, as he's as good as most tailors and not a few of those I met in
my travels, and I might have a bit of an edge in neatness, but
not much.”

“Yes, I know,”
said Hans. “I saw him sew when he first got here, and I thought
him good then, but now he does that part as good as most tailors,
even those who work here.” Pause, then, “who is that for?”

“Gabriel,”
said Sarah, who was deep in concentration. “He'll need to wear it
in that third kingdom port so as to avoid more trouble than
otherwise, even though I suspect he will get plenty of that no matter
what he wears, now that there is such a price upon his head.”

“Hence we must
make this clothing such that he may conceal effectual weapons and
bring them into action quickly, dear,” I said. “He'll most
likely need to poke more than one thug while in that third kingdom
port, shoot at least two more, and probably blast several into
perdition with one of those short-barreled shotguns – and he'll
wish stiff shot for that business, as stiff thugs want
stiff shot.”

“Even if they've
said those hardening curses?” asked Sarah.

“Close up and
personal, they won't be able ignore a load of that stuff if he
centers their chest,” I said. “The pattern won't hardly open up
inside of ten feet or so, so a load of blue shot will hit
almost as hard as the ball from a roer.” Pause, then, “Gabriel
then goes to Mr. Thug, er, Pirate, shoots him in the head at
powder-burn range with a 'clockwork marvel' or a smaller pistol
loaded with the hot stuff, and no more trouble from that one.”

The
lantern that Deborah had brought from our 'treatment room' was now in
this room, and with it glaring down directly overhead from upon its
stand, the others of our group who were to be going were using the
small folding cart to bring in supplies – supplies they had gotten
from here, supplies one or more people had gotten in town; and then,
all of what we had brought from home, and hence the Abbey. Here, I
thought to ask about more supplies, chiefly ammunition of one
kind or another, and the resounding thump that resulted nearly put me
on my nose.

There
was a tall stack of green fiberglass bins behind me, and a
brief look at these things spoke of supplies I knew we would need.

“More
of that blue shot, also,” I said. “Now I will need to teach you
how to reload those shotgun shells...” Pause, then a dire screechy
tone: “what is this? Rifle cleaning solvent? What are we going
to do over there, fight a war?”

“Closer
than you think at times, and more, that particular formula is in a
section found on that nice little collection of plastic boxes that's
now on this long braided cord about your neck.”

“Collection?”
I asked. “Braided cord?”

“Yes,
all four of them so far,” said the soft voice. “Annistæ
has the same formula in her small brown book, the one she's carried
through thick and thin, though her pen wishes a small test-tube full
of Sarah's ink so as to refill it after cleaning it well with
aquavit.”

“Do
they have what I need up there to make some?” asked Sarah. She
obviously meant 'ink'.

“Yes,
and plenty of such tubes, including many unbreakable ones,
several of which you will wish to take with you for ready inking.”
Pause, then, “don't be too surprised if you find a pen similar to
hers.”

“Is
this like a ball-point pen?” I asked.

“No,
it uses a ceramic 'quill', but it is both pressure-sensitive
and good for 'calligraphy', writes especially well – Sarah will
wish she had one like it when she sees Annistæ's, in fact –
and then, it likes ink like she has made up, so get those in
the hands of Kees and Gabriel and their outputs will roughly double.”

“Then
I shall wish two such pens,” said Sarah. “Are those pens
thirsty? Those cut from birds, even the large feathers of buzzards,
tend to need frequent dipping.”

“No,
which is why after writing perhaps twenty pages in her ledger, it is
needing a refill,” said the soft voice. “Granted, that is a
small ledger, but hers is a fine-point pen, and she printed in
that thing with small neat letters, ones that needed a headband with
a swing-down magnifying lens to readily read.”

“I
think we all want such headbands, that or with this, uh, clip
that either has a place for a two-eyes version for magnifying
matters, another version with a low-intensity light that will not
show up on their sensors overseas, or a fairly bright gold-yellow
light that looks like a really bright candle.”

“Boom,
you just got them,” said the soft voice, as another stack of
munitions arrived. “You also got over two dozen of those pens, and
they'll want lots of those overseas, so figure on giving a few
as souvenirs to the crew on that boat.”

“Which
boat?” asked Sarah.

“Why,
the submersible,” said the soft voice. “They'll give you some
rather scarce things in return, and not just knowledge you need to
take the place. They'll give you some very strange metal
pencils filled with this greasy gray-black solid that does not break
and writes on everything, and then this one item that is an
absolutely forbidden object over there.”

“What
is it?” I asked. I wondered what it was, in fact.

“A
user-refillable rebuildablefelt-tipped pen,” said
the soft voice. “Those pens you now have aren't 'expressly'
forbidden, even if getting your hands on one of them overseas at this
time takes knowing someone very important in 'that tower of
power', as everyone and his work-mate at that level has
several of them, and it isn't uncommon to hand those out to
functionaries who do especially good jobs – usually the small
good-for-looks-only pistol is the first one, but those pens are for
either a truly well-done bit of business, one that leads to a
promotion, or for multiple instances of doing especially well – and
that too leads to promotion, though the second instance usually means
becoming a member of the nearest 'palace guard' and no longer
'patrolling'.”

“The
first instance?” I asked.

“Those
people – one of those 'one-in-several-hundred thugs' – are
usually trained for up to a year so as to become spies,”
said the soft voice, “and your average spy has nearly a
dozen of those things in his gear, hence when you find one of
those smelly thugs, rifle his clothing for those pens and anything
else of use you find. That equipment will come in very handy,
and the same for any scribe-functionaries you find. They'll have
several also of those pens also, and if they turn from their labors,
they'll gladly give up one or more to the cause so as to have them
copied in numbers.”

When
the other returned from their various businesses – more lead had
come to the house, this being a total of a dozen bricks, and the
stuff was being stacked somewhere near Hendrik's door, this in plain
sight of the guard-bench by several individual, two per brick due to
their weight. These individuals included the four that had thus-far
survived my early morning rampage, and while they were obviously
injured – badly injured, in fact – it was also obvious that they
would recover quickly.

More,
by doing so, they would achieve 'near-marked' status, such that the
old curse of 'entire-true-witches or 'entire monsters' was being
carried out.

Sarah,
however, had produced from her satchel that one enigmatic list I had
written, and while she, Gabriel – he was doing his best to help,
surprisingly – Karl, and Sepp, Georg came with a summons for me.
I thought the idea of being 'a walking arsenal' was a bit much, so I
carried a machine pistol, two full magazines for both it and a
suppressed pistol, and a hand-howitzer, this with two added
mostly-full magazines 'in case any hard thugs show'. I hadn't had
chances to make pistol holsters yet, hence my pockets were full of
pistols and their respective magazines.

“Now
you look about fit for a walking brigand,” said Georg. “I'm
about due for some more shells, as I had to shoot this big mess of
rats that showed suddenly some twenty paces off...”

“No,
not paces,” I said emphatically. “That unit of
measurement originated with the witches of long ago, and we'll find
out just how it happened shortly.” Pause, then as we turned
the corner to find three guards, all of them with not merely
their older weapons, but at least one of the newer ones on a
strap per man. “The better unit is either yard or meter, and when
we call out gun-ranges, we'll use both units, as that way no one
gets confused as to how to aim their guns, regardless of where they
come from.”

“Good,”
said Georg. “Most gunners up here worth their powder might forget
themselves now and then, but when the guns are rolling and you can
hear those northern people banging their pots or whatever other
devil-forged rubbish they're using to make noise, about all you hear
is yards then, if you're a gunner.” Pause, then, “that one woman
is in there, and I think she can find what they want to know with her
knitting needle, even if she has trouble reading that stuff.”

“Needle?”
I asked, as I tapped softly at the door. My slow, as well as quiet,
taps, meant but one person was present, and Maria came promptly to
the door.

With
a machine-pistol in hand, no less, the weapon loaded, finger
along-side the trigger guard.

“Good,”
I said. “I hope you don't have to figure that one out yourself,
like I did.”

“Yes,
and I would like one of those needle-hooks she's using, save a bit
smaller,” said Maria. “These setting rugs sound like a good
thing for one's bedroom.”

“They
are, if one has many old clothes that are too worn to be seen in but
not bad enough for paper,” Annistæ said. “Now this is writ
by bad witches, and I cannot read it, but I can tell them some things
about it. Here, it speaks of that man Gabriel, and how he was as a
child, and then trained up as a witch.”

I
went to the place in question, and using Annistæ's rug-hook, I
'translated' what was said. What she had 'divined' and had
'localized', I found precisely and made plain as burning
daylight: it had been observed shortly after his birth that Gabriel
was 'prime' witch-material; that his mother had tried four times to
birth a child before him, she one of those strange creatures
having a foul-reeking multiplicity of odors and strange figure; he
had been 'ditch-delivered by a drab', that being a line I recognized
instantly as being one from my world, and therefore most
likely a line found in a large black book; and Gabriel, though a weak
and sickly infant born 'half-sized' compared to a common child, had
grown strong and healthy within a short time, given the half-dozen
slave-women whose infants had been killed before their eyes so they
could nurse him 'as full-much and as oft as he willed', as the
accursed letter spoke plainly to me.

The
next was a continuation of the first, and here, I noted a matter of
security: no witch-drafted and witch-inked letter contained
much of a crucial nature; no witch-letter was of more than
three single-sided pages, and those were rare; no real
witch-letter was writ upon commonplace paper, as that did not stand
dampness and other matters as well as this stuff did; and for matters
needing more room, the information to be conveyed thereby was first
writ in private by a witch-secretary, divided up into suitable
pieces, each missive writ in fetish-ink separately and copied from
that manuscript kept in 'secrecy vile, wide and deep', and that
document prepared from that one especial manuscript or scripts as the
secretary or secretaries took dictation from the speaking witch or
witches.

Those
secretaries were invariably close-closeted, and in their case,
that meant a literal closet within perhaps five strides at the
most of the witch owning them. There, they lived, worked,
ate, slept, shed dung, and bathed, all of this done as per the wishes
of their master.

Just
like slaves, which they in fact, were. More, there was
usually more than one, as high-ranking witches kept strange hours,
ones as long as mine if one included the drinking and the fighting
they did, and hence the attending secretaries had to be able to 'give
full attention to my speech, lest I kill you or you-all upon the
spot'.

“Their
precise words,” I said. “That is how they treat their scribes,
if you are up that high in the power structure.” Pause, then,
“your using a similar means will therefore be quite
unexpected, as most witches don't know that either, and no
king does precisely what is detailed in that, uh, 'beyond top secret'
book.”

“What?”
gasped Hendrik.

“Three
reddish letters near the very first page in it, if not the first page
itself,” I said. “R dot C dot S dot, on this mottled green
background,” I said. “That means you sleep with it under your
pillow, or in your bed-clothing with a string tied to it and your
wrist, and you'd both had best have your bed-clothing altered
to take pistols of one kind or another, as you will want them
to keep such literature safe.”

“I
know I want them, as I had to shoot another rat in here,” said
Maria. “I wish I could get a pistol of that one type, but...”

“Patience,
dear,” said Hendrik. “These chambers have passable ventilation,
and we have both endured the west school. Now I know why
there was so much gunfire there, and that all day and much of the
night. It taught me to keep on with what I was doing in spite of all
that happened.” Pause, then, “continue describing how they
trained Gabriel. It gives us all insight as to how witches
are trained, if they are born high and destined to be indeed
High.”

“High,
he says” I muttered. “Now here, it speaks of his early years.”

Gabriel
was put in his witch-undies almost the very day he was beaten out of
his diapers and tied onto his own private privy in a dark and dismal
below-ground portion of his family's huge house; and he ate, drank,
slept, and 'shed dung' in that stinky place until he was indeed fully
privy-trained, this period being quite long, so much so that the
exact time was hard to determine. After all, it was his
choice, one he had to make alone, as was everything
from conception to decomposition in the realm of witchdom.

I
suspected it was a good chunk of a year, if not longer yet. Two full
years would not surprise me.

This
initial period of 'training' was started the very first full moon
after his mother 'ejected him' from her carrying parts, and the
frequent number of times he was checked by various witches –
these with Infernal lanterns reeking of distillate and turned up
bright in one hand, and full-loaded fowling pieces in the other –
was not merely intended to 'teach him the correct use of the privy'.

This
was intended to 'break him of his wildness, and make him amenable to
instruction' – and more, teach him his current place in the
hierarchy of his family. As a young child, his status was lower
than a common slave, with the chief differences at that age
those of clothing and food.

Just
the same, witch-children had an uncommonly high mortality rate, and
they daily lived in fear for their lives, as 'displeasing' their
owners usually meant torture and then sacrifice. Only when they had
achieved 'adequate' size and learning were they actually treated as
children and not 'less than animals'.

“I
told you they started early,” said Rolf, “but I had no idea they
did what you just said.”

“His
family was something of an anomaly among witches, as their line went
back to the time of Geeststaat when it was still a very large city
and not a smoking ruin,” I said, “and they survived both the
Curse and the resulting eight hundred and more years until the year
before this one, or perhaps two years before this one, I'm not sure
which.”

“What
happened?” asked Annistæ.

“It
seems Matthias and a number of similar 'undesirable boys – too old
to be considered 'proper' children, and too young to do the work of a
full-grown man – were tossed out into the wilds so as to fend for
themselves.” Pause, then, “in reality, those causing them to be
tossed were well-hid witches and most-serious supplicants
running towns and areas to suit themselves, as there are very
few children of that age who cannot earn their keep as part of a
family.” Another pause, then, “those who were the chief
source of that thinking, as well as a number of their
cronies... Well, they sowed the wind, and reaped the whirlwind, as a
lot of those boys banded together, they kept each other
informed of matters germane to their collective survival, they shared
scavenged tools, found-on-the-battlefield weapons, and much else of a
needful nature, and they went after every witch-house and
witch-family they possibly could.”

I
paused, this time longer.

“Including,
it seems, Gabriel's family – a group of them found one of their
coaches, trailed the thing back to the house after dark, waited until
the place went 'quiet' a few hours before dawn, then several of them,
Matthias chief among them, went in with swords looted from ambushed
Norden spy-groups and slaughtered every living thing in that huge
stinky house – and they left it as silent as they went in.”

“E-every
living thing?” asked Rolf.

I
nodded, then said, “regardless of age, gender, condition, or
species – if they found it in that house, they killed it – and
usually, they cut off its head and put it well clear of the corpse,
so as to make sure it stayed dead and did not try nonsense.”
The part left unsaid was 'that is the way to deal with
witches, Krokus or no Krokus – though Krokus does
help if you have it'.

I
was becoming convinced of that matter: Krokus did things to
witches in both the physical world and in the spirit-realm,
which meant what Annistæ and at least one other person had said
about it was nothing short of the truth. The stuff was death
when used upon witches, and that in no uncertain terms.

“Which
means he has no family,” said Annistæ.

“No
family, no money, no prospects in witchdom, and now they think
he's thrown it up – and I suspect for the moment witchdom, what
little attraction it really had for him – well, he's lost most of
that attraction; and by the time we sail for that place across the
sea, it will have lost a lot more attraction.”

“Good,”
said Hendrik. “Now, is there mention of brigands in there,
specifically that man Joost?”

“Cé,
there is,” said Annistæ, who used her 'new' rug-hook to find
another spot. This saved me no small time and energy, as she'd
obviously laid the groundwork while the five of us began our packing.
We would be spending a lot of time today in the house proper,
as until the lead was 'piled' in rows atop the fourth floor, she and
Deborah would be mostly help out in here, help us get packed, or help
find supplies we needed here and there.

Especially
more bath towels and those smaller cloth satchels, and I was really
wondering where to get a lot of nails for nail-bombs.
I suspected functionaries would enjoy being nailed up good
by those horrific devices.

It
took her a surprisingly short time to find out where Joost had been
mentioned, and as she removed a small wooden skewer from the place, I
noted just why it took so little time: while I had been gone, she'd
had her list of places the kings were interested in, and had
gotten sufficiently close to the areas of interest that instead of me
having to spend minutes finding the spot, I might have to turn two or
three pages, scanning them rapidly, then home in on where the area of
interest might be.

I
then heard her use a special word, one she had not used before in my
hearing: “brigantisti.”

“Yes,
that is what this man is,” I said. “Why, have you heard of him
before?”

“I
have seen him before,” said Annistæ. “I put some
warm lead in him, too, but he was a far distance for what I was
using, and he was quick, also, but I think he still limps from where
I hit him.”

“Limps?”
I asked.

“Cé,
I hit his left knee and his chest,” said Annistæ. “With
what I had, at three hundred metrâè, his plate stopped
much of the chest-hit, but he wore no plate upon his knee, and that
put him down and crawling. I had my people to look after then, so I
swore that I would one day have his head, but all he did was hide in
the brush, and as I saw it move, I wished I had a mule-gun, but we
did not have ours with us that day.”

“Mule-gun?”
asked Rolf. “I hope it does not involve mules.”

“No,
not usually, as those are better for speed of travel and not so good
for quiet, and one wants quiet for war as we practiced it,” said
Annistæ. “It takes twelve donkeys to carry the parts of one
and a number of shells, then two hoérra to assemble such a
gun, then three to fire the gun and three to keep the shells coming.”

“A
gun-team,” he said. “Does it fire quickly?”

“Cé,
it can, though one wishes to be careful, as donkeys carry less than
mules and you do not wish merely quiet when you are done using such a
gun, you want the best speed you can from the area, which is why you
want twelve donkeys for the gun and its shells.”

I
had the impression that thirty rounds for this gun was a heavy
load for such a trip, and the number of donkeys needed to travel the
length of the Valley and then up into the haunts of Joost while
carrying a gun, the supplies of over a dozen people, and then not be
spotted by an individual with both preternatural sensing capacity –
only mine was substantially better, which made him a witch to
be reckoned with – and a good looted telescope was
such that using a mule-gun on Joost was pretty much a lost cause.

What
one needed was a rifle of supreme accuracy, one able to deliver a
killing blow at a range of well over a thousand yards, and able to
drop a plate-wearing thug at that distance consistently. More,
this rifle had to not beat its user to death when firing multiple
rounds in the course of an engagement, have quick-changing detachable
magazines, and be both 'tough' enough to endure fairly rough use and
constructed in a manner that it would still hit its target
consistently even if mistreated to a certain degree.

Namely,
a bolt-action rifle, one built ruggedly, with one of those special
telescopic sights that gave up to twenty times magnification and had
accurate range-estimating capacity.

It
also needed to have 'elk-dropping power' and 'gopher-vaporizing
accuracy' – and because it would need to be carried long distances
at a good pace for hours upon hours day after day, it needed to weigh
ten pounds or less. I asked for a small stack of paper, put my right
hand down upon it, pictured the weapon in question in my mind, and
prayed hard.

The
paper all but exploded under my hand, and when I took out that one
cord about my neck, instead of four data cases, I now had five
of those slippery gray plastic containers.

“Five?”
I asked, as I leafed through the pages. They'd been bound in thin
tan leather – another book of sorts, though this one was slim and
flexible – and a string-tie was in place at its edges. The whole,
its thirty or more plastic-coated pages, each with four to ten
microfilm sections, rolled up into something resembling a scroll
perhaps an inch in diameter and a bit less than a foot long – and
between what was in my mind, what was printed on and in that
'scroll', and what lay present upon that data cartridge, it would be
but a matter of time and modest effort to make and try this 'deer
rifle' – though anything that could reliably drop elk was
likely to ruin a lot of deer meat, unless loaded with an appropriate
round, such that it performed roughly as well as something I might
have fired long years ago. My first rifle was a likely level of
performance for 'close deer', though given their added toughness and
irritability compared to those animals of that name where I came
from, I suspected one wanted something 'heftier'.

Like
one of those legendary weapons put out by Roy, he of the
unpronounceable last name. The number that occurred to me was 'Three
hundred and forty', but somehow, I knew this weapon would not
have that large of a bullet. It would be smaller – but
also, that smaller bullet would do 'unbelievable' things.

“That
fifth one has all the instructions needed to make what you
just saw,” said the soft voice. “Only one trouble.”

“What?”
I asked.

“You
cannot get all of that capacity in a weapon without paying a hefty
price,” said the soft voice. “That weapon will recoil hard
enough that you'll need to both fit it precisely to each firer, but
also, you'll need to fit rubber recoil pads to each such weapon to
make it truly usable by the majority of users – yourself included.”
Pause, then, “they can make rough examples of those
readily, ones that you'll be able to merely trim to size for the
first examples. Later, they'll have the equipment to mold them to
finished size – and those will be the weapons you'll
predominantly use to fight those northern thugs with should they make
it onto dry land; and later, elsewhere on the continent, under the
ground, and in a number of other places here and elsewhere.”

“What?”
I asked.

“Recall
that need for 'elk-dropping power'?” asked the soft voice. “The
need to deliver a killing blow at ranges of up to fifteen hundred
metrâè? Just over a mile? Almost like that one
'big gun'?”

“Cé?”
asked Annistæ. “I can find that smelly man, and I can
get that close to him, and while what he has will carry that far, he
cannot count on it to hit anything smaller than a house at that
distance.”

“How
far can he shoot?” asked Hendrik.

“If
he wishes to shoot men, five hundred metrâè,”
said Annistæ. “He can hit them solid at that range, and call
head or chest, and expect to hit what he calls. Twice that, he does
well to hit them, though if he does, one is likely to need someone
like Graćiella handy with her full kit, and then hope to get to a
Téatré quickly so as to save the person's life.”
Pause, then, “if he is going after horses, then add half that much
to each of those numbers.”

“Will
yours carry that far?” asked Hendrik. “You made a shot at a
buzzard at six hundred, er, yards, and hit that bird solidly.”

“Then
it is likely he can hit that man,” said Annistæ. “It
is a matter, then, of finding his hide without him seeing one
looking, and then seeing him inside of it when he is laying
still and watching for trouble.”

“He
said that much, and now you confirm it,” said
Hendrik. His voice was the picture of exasperation.

“Describe
these hides he does, please,” I said. “Usually a somewhat
elevated location within the outer reaches of a woodlot overlooking a
large area, a narrow trench for the hide itself, shallow, sloping,
covered with fresh-cut brush, a low wall of stones and earth roofed
with sod or other things so it is very hard to see,
constructed during the night for the most part and finished up very
early in the morning with careful checking from all angles including
the rear portion, with a rear egress trench that goes straight back,
this trench shoulder deep from the hide, and then the trench curves
around zig-zag for perhaps twenty feet or so before it starts
becoming less deep, with the spoil put to each side and packed down
tight and filled with stones, and usually more than one line of traps
laid in wavy arcs to his rear so as to buy him time to escape should
he be discovered and his pursuers try for him from the rear.”

“Cé,
that is what he does should he know he is being followed and has time
to do so,” said Annistæ. “If he is dug in like that, then
he will hurt or kill many before he leaves his hide, and nothing
short of a mule-gun will get him out of it before he is ready to
leave.”

“He
lives in those places?” I asked.

“I
have seen him do that two days in a row, but never three, as he is
gone from the place by the fourth such day when we checked it,”
said Annistæ. “He has a large price upon his head in El
Vallyé, and the men of the Mule want him dead, and so do those
of the Black Rooster, though when he shows to the south...”

“He
does?” asked Hendrik. Again, that tone of incredulity.

“Cé,
though not very often, and that with no warning at all,” said
Annistae. “It is suspected that he travels underground much, using
this way that no one of the Valley wishes to run upon save if they
must, as those rails are bad ones and very old, unlike those we use.”

“You
use?” I asked.

“Cé,
there is one long line, one that runs the whole length of El Vallyé,”
said Annistæ, “and it gets much traffic, but there are bad
places near it on spurs, and few save Cabroni go there.”

“Cabroni
of El Vallyé, or other Cabroni?” I asked.

“I
am not sure, as I have not been on such lines save between our
settlements,” said Annistæ, “and we have our own line, one
which is one-half metrâè, rather than that line, which
is a full metrâè between its rails.” Pause, then,
“our wagons are usually pulled by an electric vehicle, but the ones
used on the big line are both electrical and fuel, and those that run
fuel are very fast.” Pause. “Ours manage the speed of a donkey,
one that is well-fed and fresh, and they tow three to five wagons,
depending on the load and its size.”

“That
almost sounds like something used in the mines,” said Rolf.

“Yes,
it is like it, but their track is usually ten centimes narrower,”
said Annistæ, “and their rails are badly made and they are
weaker, so they cannot stand the use nor the loads we run, and then,
ours run people, not just ore and supplies.”

“People?”
I asked.

“Yes,
people,” she said. “It is much cooler down there, and then, our
machines are best reached that way, and finally, it is where we grow
much of our food and do much of our difficult work.”

“Underground?”
I asked.

“Yes,
mostly root-crops,” said Annistæ. “Corn, we grow in plots
in our larger settlements, though tinkers sometimes bring in bags of
it from either the south or the west, but those to the north, they
are not able to grow our crops, so they must purchase them – and
how they did so was a mystery to me until I met Deborah.”

Annistæ's
pronunciation of Deborah was a bit peculiar, as she accented the
second syllable, not the first, and the third syllable was
rather strange-sounding, almost as if 'ah' had become 'a-eh-ee'.
She then said, “that is how her name is said in our country, so I
called her that, and she seemed to know. I knew she knew
about how those from the north got their roots when she told me about
the strange notes and the bags of money when their root crops would
vanish overnight.”

Another few minutes, this explaining
salient information regarding how to set up this 'clerk closet' both
quickly and with as few being the wiser as possible, and I had to
return to my duties. Annistæ went with me, and when she came
to where our packing was underway, she shook her head.

Deborah was beside herself, and more than
once, she booted Karl in the rump, while Gabriel, she merely yelled
at. Sepp – she once swung at his head with a club looted at a
functionary, while Sarah...

Sarah was catching a lot of abuse, this
predominantly verbal.

“How can you not see the point of
this!” she shrieked. “It is to get you to think together and
function as a team, and not to get angry at one another because of
bad handwriting. Here, give me that list!”

The list was proffered up to Deborah, who
then said, “Drud Moont. What kind of provisions are you taking,
which have two words, the first one starting and ending in the letter
'D', and the second starting with 'M' and ending in 'T'.”

The aspect of 'terminal idiocy' I saw
writ upon each face was of such potency that I wondered if someone
was wearing a fetish, but when Annistæ looked at this list, she
said, “she is right. Now that one is obvious to me. If you are
going far distances, and you must pack your food, then you wish
nourishing stuff that weighs little and packs readily. What sort of
food is that?”

“Dried meat,” said Sepp – who then
slapped himself.

“Yes, so you figured that one out,”
said Deborah – whose irritation showed itself plainly. This wasn't
that 'difficult'; it was easy, given a certain level of teamwork.
One had to start somewhere, and I felt reminded of what
I had heard in the Abbey's 'military warehouse' – something about
the goals of military training as it should be practiced. I
felt inclined to write them down somewhere, then realized they were
either burned into my brain or written down in a ledger somewhere.
Deborah then resumed speaking.

“Each of you, make your own list, and
write in your own words what you figure out. Now, this next one. It
is a single word, begins with 'C', and ends with what might be a
small 'e'. What else will you need that is like that?” Here,
Deborah looked, then muttered under her breath, “this handwriting
might be worse than mine, and not a little worse, but even I
can figure this stuff out more often than not the very instant I look
at it!” She then yelled, “I ought to make you strip and bathe,
one after another, while I and Annistæ go through your clothing
and look for fetishes, as you all are acting as if you were wearing
ones that make you glow red like witches!”

“Capital idea, dear,” I said to
Deborah. “Do it.”

I soon learned the truth of the matter,
as Deborah and Annistae were not the only ones: I found Karl to have
a 'lucky hare's foot' that proved to glow red the instant I felt his
trousers, and I tossed it; Sepp had this odd chip of rock that felt
so wrong that I tossed it out of the room and heard the thunderclap
as it went up in smoke; while Sarah... I wasn't sure what she had,
but there was something so wrong that I was going through her
clothing like a fine-tooth comb. I then asked that 'anything evil'
show itself, and to my astonishment, red leather tags shot out of
almost everything.

“Is this bogus, or did she somehow get
clothing...” I shook my head, then spat, “if she left this stuff
behind, then what did she take with her to bathe with?”

“Clothing she made, while this
here was some old clothing she picked out from the piles said to suit
her in the tailor's shop.”

“Put there by witches, I'll warrant,”
I spat. “All of this stuff needs to go, Gabriel's included,
save if it was made here and... Did they know about our trip?”

“Yes, and when you go back into inform
Hendrik, go about three letters closer to the front of that tome, and
you learn about just what they did to cause trouble in the third
kingdom and here, and how that group of witches came up here
to add labels to that clothing which had been reserved for you.”

“Hence only wear that clothing that's
either been made specially for us by people here, or clothes we know
are good,” I murmured. “Now that burn-clothing of Gabriel's –
is that witch-gear?”

“No, as burn-clothing is, with rare
exceptions, not used by witches,” said the soft voice.
“Those tags they put in the clothing set aside for you-all...”

“Mine?” I asked.

“Yours is kept under lock and key save
when it's actually being worked on,” said the soft voice, “and
when it is being worked on here, the only people who are
trusted with it are those who work on Hendrik's clothing.” Pause,
then, “they do the exact same thing with Maria's clothing, also, so
that tends to make it a bit difficult to put those markings in
it.”

“Bit difficult?” I asked.

“One of the few 'genuine' hard-locks on
the premises is used on that particular room's door, and it's both
iron-bound and doubled-thickness, with three Machalaat brothers
hinges on the inside of the door.” Pause, then,
“that isn't a commonplace hard-lock, either, but one with three
extra wards on its key.”

“Ooh,” spat Deborah. “Those take
longer than anything I know of to pick. I've done them several
times, but they take a full turn of a glass, nearly.”

“Hence our witches cannot get into that
cloth-room short of using dynamite formed into a shaped charge,” I
said. “All of the supplies are kept in that room, all of the tools
used, even the needles and thread.”

“Exactly,” said the soft voice.
“Your clothing is safe, and that Sarah made is safe, but anything
used, unless it is gone over carefully by people able to discern
fetishes, is very dangerous right now – as that used clothing has
been a target of witches for nearly sixty years, and most of it has
been worked over.”

“Almost want to collect up all of it
and turn the stuff into paper,” I spat. “Our clothing only
for the rest of the time.” I then looked at Deborah. “Yours?”

“I wore used clothing while mine was
being washed, and I was very picky,” she said. “They're making
some for me now, and nothing used would fit her, so they had to make
her clothing from the whole cloth.”

“Good,” I said. “Give them three
days, and you'll each have three sets of clothing apiece.”

“It will not take them that long, not
the way that place does clothes,” said Deborah. “I had new
underclothing in a matter of hours, and it was a good thing, as mine
was put in the bag to be sent out for paper.”

“Mine too,” said Annistae. “Now,
Deborah, let us sit down with this list, and do as we can.”

With me present – I could read this
handwriting for the most part – we had three lists inside of
five minutes, and as I went through the original, I thought to add
matters to it that had occurred to me. There were no small number of
such things, and before we were done, this room would wish a smallish
table, possibly some shelves that were not too bad, and then,
bedsteads of a sort for sleeping, unless we could put a lock upon the
door.

“Oh,” I said, going to the door.
“This one takes a key.” Pause. “Lock, become a marked
lock, one that needs the hand of a person marked beyond the trivial
to open, and under no circumstances – I repeat, no circumstances –
open for anyone who even thinks a little bit like a witch.”

I stood back, for now the door became
hazed with lightning, and small 'zaps' came from it for nearly a
minute. When the 'electrical storm' had cleared off, the previous
door was no longer present.

Nor was the doorframe a weak and feeble
thing. This thing was iron, heavy iron, iron at least
three-eighths of an inch thick, welded cleanly, and forming a socket
where the wood-veneered door swung on seven eerily silent 'hidden'
hinges.

“A seven hinge door?” I asked.

“Look at the front side, and as you
touch that door, swing on it,” said the soft voice. “This room
won't be just for your supplies – it will be the receiving
room for matters too 'delicate' for immediate reception in the days
and months to come.” Pause, this as I looked at the door and noted
its 'X' shaped iron construction and what looked like a lot of
well-made square-headed screws and varnished oak 'beams'. The heft,
though, spoke of something a good deal heavier than oak.

“Feels almost like a bank vault, like
that one place I did paperwork in,” I said.

“Precisely,” said the soft voice.
“It will open for marked people only, by the way – and as you
said, marked beyond the trivial.” Pause, then, “Andreas will not
be able to open this door. Annistae will, Deborah will, Sarah will,
you will, and then – Anna will, though in her case, it will open a
bit early.”

“Sarah?”
I asked.

“Anyone
who's set pigs alight and done the things she has is but showing what
she will one day receive in full measure,” said the soft voice.
“Remember – who led the charge on Iggy so you could deal with
him?”

“S-Sarah?”
I asked.

“Who
kept fighting, even with the pain of a broken leg, much like that one
man who is now partly recovered from his destroyed foot?”

“Sarah.”
I said.

“Who
kept fighting, even though they'd taken enough balls and shot to kill
two people – other than you?”

“She
did,” I muttered. “I wonder what will happen when she
gets her markings and everything that's hiding now shows forth.”

“I
do too,” said Deborah. “I wonder what mine are, in fact, as they
don't show...”

I
looked at Deborah's hands, then pointed at a place just to the side
of each 'smallest' finger. “There, and there, and that's for the
hands.” I then pointed to the side of her neck, and said, “that
one happens later. I then looked at her feet, and said, “that one,
that one, and the whole corner of this foot, and finally, I pointed
to her stomach, and lifted my own shirt to show the scars. “Like
this, only what makes it will be no blade.”

“W-what
will that make me?” asked Deborah, suddenly fearful.

“En
Besté,” said Annistæ. “What Cabroni name
'monster'.”

Deborah
promptly fainted, and only my asking her to wake up caused her to
awaken quickly. She then asked, “careful, someone is coming. I
think it to be Sarah.” Pause, then, “you have more, though, and
you will get more, and that's just the ones I saw.”

I
held up my left hand, and whispered, “no more can I take the left
hand path. That way is closed unto me for the rest of time.” I
then went to the wall, and put up my left hand, and prayed.

The
smoke that billowed out was such that I backed away and ran into
someone, then another someone, then as the door opened silently upon
silken hinges, a small crowd of someones.

“What
is it you did in there?” asked Georg. “At least you picked a
room with a good door.”

“I
think so,” said Sarah. “This is a marked doorknob, the
door has more than twice the usual number of hinges, they're put in
specially so one can only dose them with oil from the inside, and
then the door itself feels as if it has but wood for its surface, and
iron for its core.”

Georg
swung the door, then said, “almost wish one like this for my house,
but the rest of the place would not stand it unless my walls were
doubled for the front of the place.”

“Check
out that room now,” said the soft voice. “It's not only a
special room, but you pressing on that back wall enlarged its
physical boundaries to no small degree.”

“I
did?” I asked. There was something else, however: across
the sea, 'special rooms' were known of fairly well – and those
places did odd things
– like put one in that place called 'the black sack', or a
simulation of it so real that you would not know it to be
a simulation.

“Yes,
and you did something else, too,” said Sepp as he went in
cautiously. “We all are wearing that special underwear now, and
Gabriel swears by it and swears at that nasty black stuff he used to
like.”

“Good
that he does so,” said Deborah. “Now, while you four were gone,
the three of us went through that list and wrote our own list,
and he gave us a lot more. So...” Deborah was looking at
the clothing they had 'tossed', as was I, and I pointed to it, and
spat, “become paper, paper fit for inking, and nothing whatsoever
of the witch to it!”

The
explosion tossed me against a wall, though the impact was surprising
soft. When I turned to see where I had landed, not only did I see a
room painted glossy white: the room had grown.

“How
big is this place?” I gasped.

“About
fifteen feet wider and twenty deeper than it was,” said the soft
voice. “It's now a ground-floor secure-room. Now, ask for
appropriate screens, shelves, tables, chairs, and whatever else it
needs.”

I
waved everyone out of the room, though I had trouble doing so, as
Sarah had noticed the stack of paper.

“This
is just what Hendrik needs,” she said. “There has to be
at least ten quire of paper here.”

“Closer
to eight, but still, that's enough to keep several scribes busy and
that printing press groaning for several months,” said the soft
voice. “By then, you'll have real paper-making equipment,
both on-site and at the Abbey – though the Abbey will be
shipping out material to make paper overseas within a very few weeks
of their initial arrival.”

“Ooh,
a paper mill,” I muttered. “Those smell horrible.”

“Cé,
they do,” said Annistæ. “I shall do it in this room which
has good ventilation, and while I will not be able to make much
paper, I will be able to make it.”

“As
good as this?” asked Sarah.

“Cé,
only it will be coated paper, so it will wish special ink and
pens like this one,” said Annistæ. Here, she produced what
looked like a large ball-point pen, this of metal with a
black-striped brown central portion and a turned brass 'rear end' and
a similarly-turned brass cap. Both brass portions had been
polished to a dull gleam by years of use, and the whole thing
positively reeked of
durability. “This one needs cleaning in Alkoli and then
filling with ink, and I have chemicals for making several colors of
ink, so I will make up some tonight.”

“Sarah knows how to make the type
you will wish for that pen, and I was told we had received some pens
like that one,” I said. “Now, tables, chairs, shelves, lighting,
everything – oh, and a place for a wire-run, also, and a nice wire
going all the way to the ceiling, where it sticks up a good
ten feet. We have something
Annistæ will wish to listen to.”

“Cé?”
she said, suddenly brightening. “What will I wish to listen to?”

“Last
night he tried it out to see if it worked,” said Sarah, “and I
had a brief chance to hear someone play one of those stringed
instruments. It was unlike anything I ever heard until just a
few minutes ago.”

“Then
I think he needs one of those instruments,” said Annistæ. “I
think he needs one that is wired, with valfuelæ, so he can get
tone, like I was hearing.”

Going
into this room caused no small trepidation, even though Karl went off
to get the collapsible cart for the new-arrived paper. A glance at
this stuff before entering the room had me gasping, as this was,
indeed, true 'inking' paper', and when I swung the door wide, the
light within was sufficient that it had me wishing to wear my sleep
goggles so as to not go blind upon the instant.

“Four
lanterns?” I gasped, as I put on my daylight goggles and began
turning the lanterns down. “How big is this room?”

“Large
enough to want four of those lanterns,” said the soft voice. “Mind
the chair there – those are new lanterns, and they need to
clear out, which is why they're set to 'a full knob'.”

These
shields were not polished brass, but something else. Their
mirror finish, as well as the 'brass' itself, made for a touch of my
hand upon the tank of the one I was adjusting; and in doing so, I
nearly screamed.

These
were not Veldter lanterns, but well-camouflaged lanterns of
the type made overseas. More importantly, someone had taken a lot
of ideas from Veldter lanterns and applied them to those
made there, such that these things could be repaired readily
in the field.

“Why
the brass finish?” I asked.

“Good
camouflage,” said the soft voice. “Note that that 'brass' is
also new, and within perhaps ten to twelve hours of use, that
camouflage coating will become fully 'alive'.” Pause, then, “now,
carefully, look at the bottom of that one liter fuel tank. Don't tip
it much – they're full of 'lantern fuel'.”

“Milno,”
I spat. “Doubled-six, only they never got the numbers quite that
high.”

“That's
because that is a new-design lantern, and more, it will not
cause people to become dim-eyed, because its' globe has proper
shielding.”

“Shielding?”
I asked.

“Unbreakable
'glass' with phosphors embedded in between the two layers,” said
the soft voice. “Figure twice the light for a given amount of fuel,
and these are a good deal less picky about fuel choice, either –
anything from bad aquavit to latest-design alcohol-based
Farolcumbusteblé, which is something Annistæ will
learn about shortly.”

“Oh,
and take her stove and convert it to run such fuel,” I said softly.
“Madame, this will be your stove. Mind the lids on top – they
hide burners, and your pots will set down within those holes
there about five centimes, so they will heat well. These knobs on
the front there control each of the three burners, this one to the
left the oven, and this little dial here tells you how hot your oven
is. Your fuel tank is underneath, and contains sufficient for, oh,
in your case possibly as much as two weeks of daily use. Oh, and the
bread-toasting rack goes on the big burner-hole, so you just set your
burner to 'two', it lights off automatically, you take a long fork,
place the burner rack over the hole, put your bread on it, turn it
after a count of quick count of five, and then toasted bread is ready
before you can count to ten!”

“I
want one of those things, then,” said Deborah. “It sounds as if
Maria will wish one, also, as she does not have time to cook,
even if she is passable at it.”

“Do
they have a stove in there?” I asked.

“Yes,
two of them, one in their main room and another in the office,”
said Deborah. “The office one usually has a slow fire going in it,
though what is used for fuel is a mystery. I saw no wood, even if I
did see an ash-bucket.”

“Speaking
of stoves,” said Georg, “I need to go get some burnt-coal. You
may wish to come with me, and let them get on with the packing. They
need to learn how to get themselves organized, and with no
witch-tools handy, they should be able to work with little trouble.”

“Yes?”
I asked, as we went past the handful of floor-cleaners who had
somehow not turned witch. They were just finishing up with their
cleaning of the floors, and after a breather and a meal, they would
join over a dozen other individuals carrying bricks of lead to the
'wall' where they could be watched by those sitting at the
guard-bench with hot guns. I suspected more would be set to the task
as the lead began to arrive in quantity, and more, that lead
collection would continue on in shifts long past sundown.

I
then knew better. Not 'long past sundown'. This labor needed to
continue until people dropped, and then those individuals needed a
swift kick to the rear, so as to keep on going until they either died
from overexertion or the job was finished in its totality.
That gave me words which needed saying.

“No,
that lead-collection needs to get done today,” I said. “The
horses can rest afterward, and so can the people, but the witches are
massing...”

“Too
late,” said the soft voice. “Those guarding that lead are now
nursing sore shoulders, but the sight of three coaches going up like
powder mills and spraying money and more lead was worth it to
those four who were shooting at them.”

“Money?”
I asked.

“Something
that has its uses, especially when one is preparing to fight a war
and build the equipment needed so as to fight with the goal of
winning,” said Georg. “Other than that, I have but little more
use for it than you do.”

“What?”
I gasped.

“No,
not me, not after that pig nearly killed me,” said Georg. “There
are more important things in this world than money, and you know
what those are.” Pause, then, “I hope to be ready for the next
world when it is my time to go there. My time in this one has not
been easy, but compared to yours since you came here, it was a
float down a summer stream atop a raft made of logs.”

“Is
this to show me the boat?” I asked.

“You'll
see part of it, I expect,” said Georg. “What you need to
see is that buggy those two men came back with yesterday, as that
thing has those people in the boatwright's shop crawling up a tree to
find a hornet-nest, and you'll most likely know enough to tell them
and Hendrik about who did it, what they did, and why they did
it – and that within minutes of seeing what they have, not the week
they are likely to need to deal with something new to them.”

However,
I was mumbling about a much-more-urgent matter than a buggy that was
fit for turning into metal for Frankie and paper for writing upon,
and this educated what I was saying. It was as if I were speaking to
myself so as to embed it more firmly into my brain.

“The
goal of military training, at least as it should be practiced, is to
teach people who are unused to obeying orders and functioning
as a well-integrated team to be able to do both of
those things extremelywell – and that no matter how
tired they might happen to be, how they happen to feel about
themselves, or how they feel about those orders.” This was
said softly, as if no one save God could hear me. After all, he had
told me this, and I was trying to do as he said.

Here,
I paused, as we came from indoors and out into the sunlight. I was
glad I was armed, and more, I was glad I was ready for Chucky
if he decided to show. I could feel one of those stinkers in
the area, and as I mumbled the rest of what I was thinking, I left
Georg behind and vanished into the trees.

“This
is how it's supposed to be done, people,” I thought as I flitted
among the trees, using them for cover and concealment when and if I
could. Trees of this size meant good cover. “Once the goals of
learning to obey orders – not like a witch, but as if God himself
were giving them, with his strong admonition to use what intelligence
and capacity you have to the fullest so as to make his will a reality
– and work as a team no matter what the situation presented happens
to be, then it's a matter...

It
is Chucky. This person's a witch, I can feel him, and he's
come for what he thinks is his, and his alone. He's waited,
waited patiently, waited for us to be off our guard. I move slow,
silent as the wind, tree to tree like lightning. Chucky would need
to have unusual capacity to know of me, I moved so rapidly.

“How
to think on their feet...”

Dealing
with Chucky wasn't fun. If he was in the area, even as a light-armed
spy, it was, by definition, a combat zone. Hence the
remaining words that ran slow as molasses through my mind as I came
closer to this fool of a witch. I could feel the thuds of his
hunting boots – real ones, ones that were expressly made for quiet
and difficulty in tracking; I could also feel his silent chanting of
the hiding curse. I could see those damned runes strobing in my
peripheral vision, and it was as if he were flashing an accursed neon
sign for someone like me.

He'd
never read much about monsters in that black book he spent so
much time in – or, perhaps, there was a different explanation for
his behavior. No matter. here, one had to think while on the move,
and make better than decent decisions...

'Decent'
worked well enough with drunk-as-stinkers tinned spams or the
hoards of ill-trained thugs that would come in their drunken black
masses. With Chucky, 'decent' got you killed in a big
hurry.

Chucky
demanded 'excellence' – and that in every possible area –
if one wished to kill him before he killed you.

And
as if to remind me of what excellence truly was, I was about
to move out from behind one of the thick trees when I froze...

I
could plainly hear the cocking of a hammer-fired weapon. It was not
a fowling piece. It was a fifth kingdom musket, one of those things
that fired a slug suitable for stuffing an ancient Tower musket for
bore and configured like a Civil War rifled musket. It hit like an
elephant gun, even more than what I had first used here, and I'd seen
first-hand what those bullets could do.

Tag
someone more or less anywhere, especially at these ranges, and...

The
thundering roar had me leap away from the tree, then as I flew, I
fired into the smoke cloud some twenty feet away. Three rapid shots,
then as I began running through the trees, I heard someone firing
with two revolvers, rapid-fire shots sending bullets ripping through
the trees. The thundering roars of these weapons suggested the thug
was using dragoons, and the whine and splinters of bark that flew as
I ran in a zigzag circle spoke of a thug of no common prowess. I
suddenly stopped, then as the man slowly turned toward me, I peered
out from the side of an unusually large tree.

This
at a low kneeling level. He'd expect me to stand, and I knew
that. Hence, my kneeling as low as I could and using a thick
tree for cover.

I
had set my fire selector at full-auto, and when the thug saw me, his
shoulder-length albino-type hair told me he might well be Joost
himself, even as I squibbed off a short burst and he screamed loud
and long as he crumpled to the earth and I ran once more for the rear
exit of the yard of the house proper. He most likely had come in the
back way, using a key to the place furnished years ago by a
bought-and-paid-for 'fully-owned witch-slave'.

“He's
going to be coming this way,” I thought, as I rigged two metal
pears, one under each of two medium-sized rocks, this near the
manure-pile and near a stand of tall 'bamboo' that I had never seen
before. I put the grenades with the rocks atop them and their pins
removed directly in the tracks of these strange pointed boots,
boots fitted with 'track spikes' on their heels and soles, and as I
heard a surprisingly fast 'limping' trot, I drew back perhaps thirty
or forty feet, and into the stand of bamboo, hoping for a slight
depression that would yet give me a clear shot at the area where I
had laid my traps. Finding one but a few feet into the bamboo grove,
I then lay prone, my machine pistol set to single fire. I was going
to snipe this person if my bombs didn't catch him.

He
was able to move awfully fast, even if I had wounded him
badly, and when he came into view – fast-flowing blood
showing clearly on his black swine-hide sleeveless vest, his hand,
and his neck – he instantly saw one of the rocks. Stones in his
pathway, he thought. A commonplace trick at his level of
initiation. He knew what to do with these, and unthinkingly did it,
chanting a rune-curse as he did so.

Kicked
it with his boot, this being a trap far too easy for him. The
grenade ignited, its lever flying back, the bomb utterly silent, no
smoking, nothing to alert this thug, one who thought himself too
smart to catch and too canny to be chased down and killed. He
stopped, looking at the thing, chanting his curse again and again,
all the while wondering just what this odd fetish was...

A
sudden roar shattered the silence, and rocks, dirt, pieces of thug,
and God only knows what else went flying as I hugged the earth
and hunkered down in this slight declivity. Something hit the ground
not three feet from my right arm as it smashed into the bamboo, and
as the throw-rock and other things that had been sent flying – the
blast of the first grenade had set off the second, which meant not
only did 'mister thug' get 'turned into pie filling' by
grenade-splinters...

He
ate his share of rock-splinters also, and a big jagged shard
of stone had spiked him in the forehead.

His
hair, once white as cotton and shoulder length, was now ragged,
clotted with gore, and ripped and torn by a multitude of splinters
and other things, but as Georg came at a run with a small mob of
people coming single file behind him, I stood shakily to my feet and
came out of the bamboo. I booted the thug's head out ahead of me,
and I had words to say. I said them, not caring if people thought
them offensive or not.

“Decent
isn't nearly good enough for this type of thug,” I muttered, “even
if you have to do things under fire in a combat zone.” I
then wondered idly if the thug's weapons were still intact.

“They
are, and Georg found them and was waving people clear of his weapons
and other things he dropped when you shot him the second time,”
said the soft voice. “You didn't just 'get him some' when you hit
him with that burst, you know.”

“What
did I do?” I asked.

“Put
five rounds in his chest,” said the soft voice. “You 'drilled
him good', and only the fact that he was one of the hardest
hard-witches on the continent allowed him to keep moving with a
destroyed heart.”

“Who
is that stinker?” I gasped. I recalled the description of Joost,
and this individual looked just like him.

“No,
it is not Joost,” said the soft voice. “Joost is a bit
too dangerous for those people to the south to hire him without a
pressing need to do so.” Pause, then, “his twin brother,
however, was thought altogether suitable for this job – and
that's him right there, or rather, what's left of him.”

I
left the head of the dead witch lie after turning him over so as to
look at his face, but the grenade splinters had turned his visage
into something resembling witch-burger. Somehow, however, I recalled
what he looked like as he bent over to look at a bomb he'd never seen
before, and more, how a trap that was 'too simple' held a trap 'far
too complex and thorough' – and had he known there were two
such traps with someone waiting nearby to shoot him if he didn't fall
for them...

“That
is a bit better than decent,” I thought – though as Joost's
brother's head began to slowly smolder and then burn with low
guttering flames amid putrid clouds of black smoke, I left the dead
to bury their own. I needed to look at what he was using, and more,
get an idea as to what it was. It would probably give
clues as to Joost's weapons, or so I thought.

The
buggy could wait another five minutes, and as I walked through the
trees, I noted where bark had been blasted off of them. More, I
looked toward the south.

“Twenty
miles out, and going at a steady pace,” I thought. “Here come
the forerunners for tomorrow. Big crowd, going to take up this area
and that in front, and we got to get all of that lead before tomorrow
morning. Have no idea how with our current teams and vehicles...”

“Lukas
did, does, and has done so,” said the soft voice. “It may well
have to rest in places on the grounds, but he's signaled to a number
of people with stone-wagons, and they're coming also. Expect
two runs to get all of it, and it mostly to be on the grounds by
nightfall, with the balance coming within an hour after sundown.”

“Stone-wagons?”
I asked.

“More
than a few wagon-shops used by such people are doing a land-office
business, especially two that have 'paddle wheels' in modest-sized
streams. Those might not have the speed of what Willem has, nor the
raw torque of that huge wheel at Waldhuis, but the turning of a
'paddle-wheel' in a modest stream is a lot quieter than a
marmot, it runs steadily as a rule, it does not need to take
breaks, and the lathes used, because they're driven steadily,
give a good finish to their workpieces and keep wear on their tools
down. Hence a superior end result is achieved in about half the
time, if you speak of lathe-time for wagon axles – and those people
are busy.”

“And
stone-wagons are parked two and three deep,” I murmured, as I came
upon where I had hit Joost's 'dupelgaenger' or so identical twins
were known here. Unlike most of those people, these individuals were
alike to such a degree that dealing with this man
wasn't much easier than Joost himself, and learning what Joost was
likely to use made for wondering, as what was laying on the ground
wasn't one of those fifth kingdom rifled muskets.

“That's
a breech-loader,” I spat, looking at the rather ungainly-looking
'badly-done Sharps copy'. Upon further notice, I changed that to
'really weird but otherwise very well-executed Sharps copy',
as this weapon's mechanism worked very smoothly, and more, when one
snapped down the lever forming the guard for the two-trigger
set-trigger mechanism, a long brass cartridge case ejected out of the
breach with a rapping noise, this three-inch long rimmed brass thing
still smoking and sooty. A whiff told me 'this man was not
using commonplace powder, but something closer to what I used', and
when I waved the onlookers away from first one dropped dragoon and
then another, I began scanning all over for Joost's cartridge belt
and his other dragoons. I soon found his waist belt,
slightly ripped and torn, it still being attached to the trunk of his
body. Unclipping it showed that it carried no less than forty loaded
cartridges, and when I found first another such belt some distance
further away, this one longer and holding more loaded rounds,
then a third belt, this one holding mostly loaded rounds with a
handful of used ones next to a second pair of emptied dragoons, I
spat, “how much did he intend to use this thing?”

“Quite
a bit, actually,” said the soft voice. “He was the backup plan
for that one group in case they failed, and when he came, he was not
expecting to find you. So, he fires once, your three shots tag him
in his hand and neck, so he drops his rifle and starts shedding his
cartridge belts as he runs, firing his six revolvers at your
noise.”

“He
was getting a bit too close for comfort,” I muttered, as I found a
fifth example of one of those huge pistols, this slightly
nicked by grenade-splinters, then the other of his third pair,
this with his hand still clutching it. I removed his hand, and as I
made to turn, that hand went up in smoke and flames. Only then did I
look at the pistols themselves. I instinctively knew all six pistols
were part of a matched set, and I knew from experience that given a
pistol that took minutes to stuff and a few seconds to empty, the way
to get 'firepower' was to carry several of them in a
ready-to-use state. This man did precisely that, and he
wasn't the only one to do so.

Cavalrymen
of the Civil War usually carried as many pistols as they could, as
reloading that type of pistol wasn't something one had time to do in
a horseback-mounted melee. They didn't have Churchill's C-96 Mauser
and its capacity to devour a clip of ten, this stuffed in with one's
thumb. Removing the clip holding the rounds caused the bolt to rip
forward, and tossing the clip in one's pocket meant one could resume
shooting 'manstopper' bullets at oncoming Sudanese tribesmen.

I
had not faced Sudanese tribesmen. I did have, at least at one
time, a Mauser pistol of that type.

“These
may be Brumm-sized, but they are not Brumm-grade,” I
muttered, as I came back to the present with the last pair of pistols
in my hands.

“Brumm
got his pair through three intermediaries and was going to have them
'cleaned up, reworked, and timed',” said the soft voice. “This
man paid a tripled price per pistol over what Brumm had paid – both
initially and in advance to have his guns worked on – and got 'the
best to be had' – and unlike Brumm, he knew well of the value of
'melee reloads', and hence bought a set of six.”

“Where
did he get them?” I asked, as I policed up the rest of this thug's
dropped equipment. This included another of those huge knives, this
one showing some use – not much; the knife had seen regular
care and wiping with what looked like fourth kingdom grease – and
then another knife, this one long, sharply pointed – and quickly
going to rust for its metal portion and its wooden handle going to
dust just as quickly. It was embedded in the ground point-first, not
far from where a splash of swift-smoking blood told me I'd first
hit my assailant as I fired through his powder smoke.

“An
Arkansas toothpick dagger,” I said. “Now why did he have one of
those nasty things when he's got this rigging knife by Machalaat?”

“Because
he was a witch, and that one knife there was cursed, so stabbing
someone with it was far more likely to be deadly, compared to
what else you found of his accoutrement,” said the soft voice.
“While that is usually a matter of purest rubbish, when you
get a knife like that made by a good knife-making witch
and then curse-poisoned by Madame Curoue, the result is it indeed
does kill more effectively due to the poison she put on the
blade, and the rough-ground finish of that type of knife tends to
both hold and maintain that venom's potency for a number of
years.”

Pause,
then, “as for his weapons, they were purchased through multiple
intermediaries from the second-best gun-making concern in the fourth
kingdom, and while they're nowhere near as well-known among the
majority of people as weapons made by the Heinrich works, their
'best' grade guns give up little to those of the latter
location for performance or durability.”

“But
one difference,” I said. “They sell to witches...”

“No,
not if they suspect the buyer to be a witch, much the same as the
Heinrich works,” I heard. “The latter location does not
make weapons like those you found here – they specialize in hunting
weapons, especially fowling pieces.” Pause, then, “this location
does make these weapons, and they normally deal with fourth
kingdom market hunters, who often find they need to make long
shots or deal with some 'big mean critters' found in portions of the
third, much of the fourth kingdom outside of its central area, and
parts of the fifth kingdom as well.”

“Tyrant
lizards?” I asked.

“Those,
some other 'big mean critters' that you have neither heard of nor
seen, and these other rather rare animals that make elk when in the
mood seem pleasant to deal with,” said the soft voice. “They're
'rare' because they do not like to be around people, but if
you get down into the fourth kingdom's market's tonier Public Houses
and get your teeth into an unusually large and flavorful
roast, you can guess what animal provided it.”

“What?”
I asked.

“Mobogo,”
said the soft voice. “The word 'm'bogo' you saw in that bestiary
is flat out wrong.”

“Big,
black, meaner than a bad elk with a taste for mash, big horns...” I
muttered.

“The
first kingdom's elk act like Cape Buffalo,” said the soft
voice. “Those things are worse.”

After
policing up what of Joost's brother's effects I could – I found his
sizable lard-slimed money pouch, then an even-more-sizable cache of
supplies he had hid just inside the rear entrance under a cloth
covered with branches and leaves, this having more ammunition for his
weapons, much of a box of mining dynamite, jugs of genuine
southern cleaning solution ready-rigged with dynamite that caused a
surprisingly mild headache, some of the genuinely drippy type of
dynamite, this wrapped with rusty chains and bagged up in
coarse-woven cloth sacks with rope handles for tossing, equipped with
short fuses and friction igniters; and finally, a jug of high-test,
this of such size and color that it made me wonder as to its purpose
– did this man work while trashed? – until I uncorked it and
noted a nose-burning odor unlike anything I had ever smelled
before. I pointed all of this out to the others as I brought back
this jug, and when I proffered it to one of the carpenters, he
yelled, “now how is it you get this triple-distilled tailor's
antiseptic in this big of a jug?”

“That
stinking dupelgaenger of Joost had brought it,” I said. “Did he
want to drink that stuff?”

“Not
if he is a witch,” said the man. “Those want bad brandy or this
other stuff called forty-chain. Why?”

The
thought was so outlandish that I almost dismissed it out of hand, but
when I thought to say it, I could feel a distinct urging, this by no
one physically present.

“To
deal with injuries,” I said. “He knew that if the other group
had failed that I was most likely on the premises – and that even
if he managed to deal with me, he knew he was going to pay a
high price while doing so. So he brought this stuff, thinking
it would help any wounds he picked up – and he picked some up, all
right.”

“Yes,
I know,” said Georg. “I was waiting, thinking that if he came
this way, I could shoot him with what I had from cover, but he went
after you, so I stayed put.” Georg then unloaded his gun, and to
my surprise, both shells in the gun had that infernal letter 'S' on
them.

“Stiff
shot, and that thug was as stiff as they come,” said Georg.
“Still, I doubt he would have ignored it much.”

“He
seemed to ignore me shooting him in first the arm and neck, and then
five times in the chest,” I said. “He...” I then had a
question. “How long would he have lived?”

“About
long enough to get to his supplies before he lost enough blood to
collapse and then die,” said the soft voice. “He was dead and
did not know it, and like Sarah putting the ball of a roer through
that one witch, the only reason he continued on as he did was he was
literally 'as hard as they come' on the continent, and what you shot
him with had enough punch at thirty yards to 'defeat' those hardening
curses fairly well.”

“And
Annistæ was a lot further away with Joost,” I said. “Still
hurt him, though.”

“Better
ammunition, mostly,” said the soft voice. “It took him nearly a
month to recover enough to begin to learn to walk again on
that knee, and nearly three months more hard work to learn to ride
well again. If he must walk, he does so slowly, in great pain, and
needs to rest a lot. He could manage far enough on foot if he
had to, but he developed a still-growing addiction to that tincture
for pain due to how badly his knee was messed up by that bullet
destroying it, and he's corked solid from consuming substantial doses
of well-cleaned flower sap on a thrice-daily basis.”

“And
hence this example of thug had a decisive edge in some ways compared
to the one I heard of,” I said.

“No
small advantage in a fire-and-movement regime,” said the soft
voice. “Otherwise, though, Joost is a bit better at being patient
– being so drugged helps him that way – but those are
about the only big differences between the two witches. They were
impossible to tell apart on the basis of appearance, they had the
same quantity and quality training, they were both extremely
good at what they did, and neither man is replaceable as far
as witchdom is concerned.” Pause, then, “witchdom took a big
hit today.”

After
gathering up the horses Joost's twin brother had hidden – he had
five of them, all on long leads, all commonplace animals, all having
small deer-skin saddlebags, and all of the animals stolen, or
so I suspected – I brought them in using their leads, then closed
the gate and plugged the lock with a sizable chunk of whittled wood
and put a baulk of timber against the door to make it harder yet to
open – with a grenade, handle-pinned-down, under the baulk of
timber so as to give us ample warning of trouble as well as killing
those attempting to go through that doorway.

After
securing the horses to various trees near the horse-barn – the
grooms could deal with them there – I made my way back to the
boatwright's shop. There, I had a buggy to decipher and thereby
learn what I could; and then, another session with Hendrik to answer
more questions.

The
weapons and their ammunition were already headed indoors using a trio
of old yet still-serviceable wheelbarrows, and I suspected Annistæ
would speak about them as much as myself.